


An Officer and a Gentleman

by orphan_account



Series: Chicagoverse [1]
Category: Les Misérables (2012)
Genre: A Really Ugly Dog, A Yugo, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coptaire, M/M, Taxidermy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2017-12-28 04:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/987926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire's a beat cop in Chicago. Enjolras is best known for being the Handsome Protest Boy meme, although he'd really like you to spend less of your time photoshopping him onto things and more time becoming politically aware. Also, he's 25. </p><p>When Enjolras stands on the wrong end of a bar fence with an open container of alcohol, it begins the most embarrassing arrest of Grantaire's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. discipline and punish

It was him. It was Handsome Protest Boy Meme. 

He wasn’t protesting, just standing around in front of John Barleycorn.

Standing around with an open beverage in hand, on Grantaire’s beat, on the wrong side of the decorative fence. Grantaire looked around to see if anyone saw him see Handsome Protest Boy.

None of that mattered when Handsome Protest Boy locked eyes with Grantaire. It was too late to pretend he hadn’t seen Handsome Protest Boy now, or watched him take a slow sip of his craft beer while looking defiantly underage. Grantaire pulled himself up straight, reaching his full height of 5’ 9” (nothing to be ashamed of, only one inch below the national average) and walked with a firm step.

“Sir, it is illegal to carry an open beverage on public property in the state of Illinois,” Grantaire said.

The kid raised one eyebrow and fished a bottle-cap out of his corduroys. “You could be doing a lot more good elsewhere, unless you’re corrupt or incapable, in which case, you ought to just stay here.”

“I’m also going to need to see some ID,” Grantaire added, because although Handsome Protest Boy was even more handsome up close than he was when photoshopped into a number of hilarious unrelated circumstances, he was being snarky and also couldn’t have been more than eighteen.

HPB reached back into his pants and came up empty-handed. “I must’ve left my wallet with a friend.”

“Where’s your friend?”

The friend had always disappeared somewhere.

HPB made a token show of looking around, then of looking embarrassed. “I don’t know where he went.”

“Then I’m going to have to bring you in.” Grantaire really didn’t want to arrest a meme. He stared down at the sidewalk while a particularly vicious ray of sunlight lit HPB from behind. “Look, just admit that you’re underage, get on the other side of the fence, and we’ll pretend this never happened.”

“Why are you suddenly trying to negotiate with me? I’m clearly breaking the law. This is just laziness on your part.”

“You are _lecturing_ the cop who was going to let you _flout_ the law.”

“You need it!”

Grantaire took out his handcuffs. “Sir, please put your hands behind your back.”

“No, I don’t think you’ll put in the trouble of arresting me.”

He didn’t say it smugly; no, HPB had to say it confidently, like he knew that deep down, Grantaire really didn’t feel like wasting his time on prosecuting the victimless, pointless crime of carrying an open alcohol container while underage. He’d never understood why he’d decided to become a cop – it probably boiled down to ‘things to do that were not accounting and did not require a four year degree’, plus he’d forgotten to turn in his portfolio to art school on time – but he’d really never been good at it. Grantaire’s self-examination was interrupted by the sound of a frat brother saying, “Hey, it’s Handsome Protest Boy! And he’s about to get arrested!”

“I’m not protesting,” HPB said, finally expressing one fraction of the humiliation Grantaire experienced every day as a police officer as more and more people started to gawk.

“I absolutely have to arrest you now,” Grantaire said. “Please cooperate before this turns still more excruciating.”

“What kind of cop uses the words ‘excruciating’ and ‘flout’?”

“Are you implying that I shouldn’t?”

The unspoken accusation of classism made HPB freeze. Grantaire seized the moment to handcuff him while he was too distracted to argue.

“Holy shit, he’s really getting arrested!” said yet another helpful fraternal commentator.

“Is this when you march me to your car?” HPB asked, with the expression of a blond Che Guevara bent over the fencing of a sports bar. 

“I’m a bike cop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next on _Coptaire_ , Enjolras and Grantaire ride the El. Chief Javert rejoices at finally nailing the meme which had mocked him from the breakroom refrigerator. We find out a shocking truth about Enjolras.


	2. democracy begins between two

Protocol was to call for a car to come pick up the suspect, but the suspect had a disdainful turn to his lip that made Grantaire want to exercise his personal judgment. 

It was a strange feeling, and not one he liked much. 

“Would you say you’re a low-impact sort of meme?” Grantaire asked. 

HPB gave him a look of blue-eyed confusion. 

“Do you try to reduce your carbon footprint?” 

“Yes,” HPB said, wriggling into a more comfortable position over the fence. “Which is irrelevant to your current act of petty tyranny.” 

Grantaire helped HPB back to his feet. He briefly considered trying to load the guy onto his bike rack. 

“We’re taking the El.” Before HPB could load his tongue back into place, Grantaire got started on the Miranda warning. “You have the right to remain silent.”

“If only you were so lucky.”

“Belligerent, are you? Anything you say or do may be used against you in a court of law.”

“Freedom hath been hunted round the globe.”

“Jesus Christ,” Grantaire muttered. “Okay, we’re going to walk to my bike while I talk about your right to an attorney, and then we’re getting on the brown line. Will you cooperate that far or do I need to hold your arm?” 

HPB looked at the assembled rubbernecking fratboys. He was obviously weighing his own humiliation against Grantaire’s. 

“I’m a flight risk,” HPB said. 

“Fuck me.”

The El was packed. It was 1:14 in the afternoon. There were no seats left, not even for cops. Well, maybe cops who weren’t Grantaire. 

He mourned his mental image of a vindictive train ride sitting next to Handsome Protest Boy, who’d introduced himself as Enjolras halfway to the station. Instead, he had one hand gripping the strap while he tried to keep Enjolras balanced with the other. 

“I didn’t picture you as the type to hang out at a frat bar over lunch,” Grantaire said, because the only thing more awkward than practically holding a complete stranger you’d arrested for being snarky was holding him silently. “To be fair, I’ve seen you in a lot of places - protesting Ridiculously Photogenic Guy, shirtless Putin, going to Gay Day at Disney World…” 

“What?” Enjolras asked, suddenly falling forward and muffling the rest of his bewilderment in Grantaire’s shirt as the train drunkenly lurched from side to side. “Why would they do that?” 

Enjolras smelled like he laundered his clothes in ambrosia. Grantaire helped Enjolras straighten himself up with the utmost professionalism. 

“It’s the red cardigan. Everyone wears red on Gay Day.”

In fact, Enjolras was wearing the exact same thing as he had been when his internet fame had dawned. He even had the same black wool scarf tied in the same knot, which Grantaire had memorized in the process of making Enjolras’s picture into a sticker for the breakroom fridge saying, ‘END POLICE CORRUPTION – NO FREE LUNCH.’ 

“It’s my favorite sweater,” Enjolras said. 

Grantaire rubbed the fabric with his thumb. “Is this merino wool?” 

“Cashmere.” 

The train decided to spare the both of them the lingering embarrassment of Grantaire thoughtlessly fondling Enjolras’s sweater by flinging both of them onto the floor. 

“ _Tabernacle_!” Enjolras grunted. 

Of course it wasn’t enough for Handsome Protest Boy to be part of Chicago’s inexplicably large French population – he was French-Canadian. 

~

Somewhere between Chief Javert’s whiskers, the man was attempting a smile as he saw Grantaire escorting Enjolras past his office. 

“The law is not mocked,” Javert said. “Particularly not the open container law.” 

“It’s only a _fine_ ,” Enjolras replied. 

“He didn’t have any I.D. on him,” Grantaire said. “It took a few centuries to look him up because he’s a Canadian citizen.” 

“I’m a citizen of the world,” Enjolras said. 

“What a lovely breeze descending from Ionia. Unfortunately, Chief, it turns out he’s twenty-five.” 

Javert grimaced as protocol dragged Handsome Protest Boy out of his hairy-knuckled fingers. 

“Don’t waste any more police time,” said Javert, clearly directing the comment at both of them before he retreated back into his office and his autographed Ayn Rand collection. “And you should have clocked out an hour ago,” he added as a parting volley. 

“You’re free to go,” Grantaire said. 

He expected Enjolras to reply with more revolutionary rhetoric, or possibly to debate the meaning of the word ‘free’ in a federalist state with a largely unregulated police force. Instead, he stuck his hands in his cardigan pockets and turned mortified. 

“My CTA pass is in my other sweater,” Enjolras said. “Could you give me a ride home?” 

Grantaire fell back on his greatest weapon against taking attractive people home: the truth. 

“I have to give my dog his insulin shots.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next installment of _An Officer and a Gentleman_ , we meet Coptaire's dog, Comet. Enjolras reveals exactly what brought him to John Barleycorn at noon, why his friend had his wallet, and the presumable coordinates of his CTA pass and attached sweater.


	3. simulacra and simulation

No one ever asked Grantaire for rides, because they knew he drove a 1985 Yugo. To be fair, the car had never completely broken down, just continued to exist in a perpetual state of dissatisfactory repair for as long as Grantaire could remember. There was a cigarette burn in the passenger side seat from Bossuet at sixteen and a sticky orange spot over most of the backseat from Joly trying to make orange cream floats on the I-94. Enjolras had to move a few weeks of Tina’s Burritos wrappers out of the way of his feet and kindly avoided stepping on Grantaire’s Iron Maiden CDs. He sat down with controlled politeness, though his hands were protectively pocketed in his cardigan.

“Buckle up,” Grantaire said. “It’s the law.”

“Does this car even go over forty?”

“Seatbelts reduce fatal injuries in the front passenger seat by forty-five percent, and yes, sometimes it does. Its name is Victor.”

Grantaire kept his hand pointedly on the gear shift until Enjolras clicked his seatbelt into place. The Yugo’s engine coughed itself to life and pulled out of the station with only a few ominous clacks.  

“You know, I’ve seen you and that red sweater at least fifty times, but I never expected to encounter them together at a frat bar at noon.”

“I was only ever a few clicks away,” Enjolras said, resting his head against the beaded seat cover with something like world-weariness. Though his hair did look perfect, Grantaire suspected it was bedhead.

“I’m really curious,” Grantaire added.

Most people would have filled the silence that followed by answering the question, but Enjolras slid further into the seat and gave him a half-smile which should have been smug but only looked cute.

“Funny story, how I got there without my phone or any identifying information,” Enjolras said.

“It’s puzzling.”

“Sounds like a mystery the manpower of the Chicago PD needs to get on top of.”

Grantaire made a sputtering noise helpfully masked by the Yugo. Enjolras eloquently adjusted his scarf, a movement which said, “I realize that I accidentally made an explicit double entendre.” They were at a stoplight. There was no symbolically driving away from the awkwardness. Grantaire wondered if he should ask Handsome Protest Boy out on a date now that his police shorts were off, since it would no longer be an unethical pass to make at someone who was either flirting with him and/or just that Canadian.  

Enjolras was a terrible idea. For one, he could quote Thom Paine by heart and with conviction, which made him exactly Grantaire’s type: the sort of person who would’ve left a beautiful, inspired corpse in the 19th century. Instead, Enjolras probably spent his days in a haze of frustration, or if he was anything at all like Prouvaire, a lot of variably illegal herbal remedies. The fact that Enjolras was probably on a no-fly list, and thus inaccessible for Christmas visits home to Stockton, was a definite bonus but it wasn’t worth dating a potential terrorist.

Grantaire mourned for the tempestuous relationship that never would be as he pulled into his building’s parking lot. “I’ll just be five minutes with the dog,” he said, getting out of the car just as Chicago remembered that November weather was supposed to be cold and the Artic blasted down his neck.

“There’s really a dog?” Enjolras asked.

“Yes, and she only has three legs after an accident involving a liberal arts student and Tai Chi. Why did you think I invented a diabetic dog?”

“To avoid having to give me a ride home by making me look like an ungrateful ass for questioning you, or a credulous ass for believing that your life is scheduled around a diabetic dog.”

“That’s where you’ve underestimated my investment into this punchline,” Grantaire replied, feeling so pleased with himself that he opened the passenger door for Enjolras, who was still trying to work out the existence or nonexistence of dog.

Grantaire paused in front of his apartment, leaving his hand on the knob for dramatic effect. “Judging from the apparition of Comet, one would be tempted to think that Hell itself is in need of actors for its performance.”

Comet came hopping out, perfectly on cue, the moment Grantaire opened the door. Never had his disobedient, expensive bastard of a dog been more welcome in her appearance. Comet had distinguished salt and pepper hair, a full, white beard, incredibly beady eyes, was shaped approximately like a barrel, and had a distressing crest of hair on her back and neck which was a clear throwback to an ancestral hyena. She had no tail, which was a shame, because it would have helped her balance with her missing back leg. The typical reaction to Comet was pity or revulsion. Enjolras immediately went for peals of laughter.

“ _Ben là!”_ Enjolras exclaimed, kneeling down to pet the dog, who looked ready to explode with joy. _“Ça, c’est le chien le plus ridicule que j’aie jamais vu. Mon ami, tu devrois croquer moins de bonbons.”_

No high school French class which Grantaire had slept through could have prepared him for deciphering a Québecois accent. “We speak English in America. Don’t pet her mane too much, it makes her so excited she gets asthma.”

“Of course it does.”

Comet started wheezing immediately and crawled into Enjolras’s lap.

“Where did you find her? The sewers?”

“My ex-girlfriend dumped the two of us at the same time.” Grantaire began the long search through his fridge for Comet’s insulin kit. “She married an HSBC banking exec. The takeover was highly globalized, but never showed in her face. It took him less than twenty-four hours to affinance her into a mansion on Sea Island – and where do you think he got his money? In Mexico, HSBC ATMs have a customized deposit slot so that drug cartels can make huge deposits. She texted me to take care of her dog. Comet’s disorders are meteoric – _vae victis_ to my credit rating! Ah, of course I hid her medicine with some rotten food.”

Grantaire joined Enjolras on the floor and took advantage of Comet’s distraction to administer the insulin. The dog was too blissed out to notice; Comet loved everyone except Grantaire.

“ _O tempora, o mores,_ ” Enjolras said, frowning as he rubbed under Comet’s chin. He didn’t seem to be quoting Cicero with the healthy amount of sarcasm that was needed, and looked like he was maintaining the sort of righteous anger towards high finance which was quite sexy but ultimately futile. It felt like the right moment to kiss someone whose image he’d lasso tooled into dozens of absurd situations.

Grantaire leaned in. Enjolras stopped petting the dog.

It was going to happen.

Just as Grantaire closed his eyes, he heard a chunderous howl from the direction of Enjolras’s crotch. Comet had thrown up all over Enjolras’s jeans. Enjolras was only shocked for a moment before bringing the entire Catholic liturgical apparatus into his pants situation. Grantaire caught something about the Virgin shitting out the Host onto suffering Christ on Calvary, because there was something universal about swearing in former Catholic colonies.

“I am so sorry,” Grantaire said, because he absolutely _was._

“How did she even produce that much vomit?” Enjolras asked.

“Because the universe is a tease.”

Of course, there was nothing in Grantaire’s drawers which could conceivably fit Enjolras in a way that wasn’t hilarious. Grantaire and Enjolras hadn’t had a similarly sized waist since Grantaire was about twelve, and even then Grantaire was about half an ass too big. Even getting to see Enjolras’s excellent taste in red briefs wasn’t worth the shared wince over Enjolras having to look like a middle schooler in JNCOS. The ride to Enjolras’s apartment in Wicker Park went in absolute silence, until Grantaire forced himself to break it just to apologize for the size of his ass.

“It happens,” Enjolras said.

“I’ll wash your pants,” Grantaire replied.

“Thank you.”

The Yugo broke down on the way home. His car’s tortured engine reminded Grantaire that he’d never asked for Enjolras’s number so he could return his jeans.

“Goddammit, Victor!” Grantaire yelled at the steering wheel.

~

It was a few weeks later, in front of a decaying cow’s head, that Grantaire finally felt dissatisfied with wasting his life.  He’d come to Prouvaire’s art show out of friendship and optimism about the catering. The canapés looked beautiful, but tasted like the formaldehyde everything in the show had been pickled in. Prouvaire had even hinted that there were traces of arsenic in the blinis. The napkins passed out with the wine had skulls on them, and the usher had told him “momento mori” as he’d walked in. Grantaire searched the room for something which didn’t actively remind him of death, and his eyes settled on an older man who looked like he could be Handsome Protest Boy’s father.

He was suddenly yanked back by someone with very delicate fingers and nearly stumbled over the head of _Less Than A Year (Fuck Damien Hirst)._

“I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend,” Enjolras whispered.

“Am I in a romcom?”

“Do you see the blond man over there?”

“The hot one?”

Enjolras curled his lip. “That’s my father, and he’s insufferable. Please help me convince him I don’t spend most of my time alone.”

“That’s a tall order.”

“You arrested me, and then your dog vomited on me. Do you have any sense of justice?”

“Absolutely none: it’s why I’m a cop.”

The cow’s dead eyes were staring upwards at Grantaire. It was very emotionally manipulative.

“Your father will hope you become a priest after I’m done dating you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We still don't know why Enjolras was at John Barleycorn - was it a walk of shame? Was he simply lost?


	4. vector of desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slice of life from Grantaire's past inspired by the news headline, "Oregon man high on meth fights off 15 cops while masturbating."

Dispatch had been quite clear on what was going on in the produce aisle of the Jewel at Clark and Division, but Grantaire was still a little surprised by this particular naked methhead’s dedication to masturbation. He’d already completely ruined the butternut squashes.

“Put your hands in the air!” Bossuet repeated.

“He’s got a weapon in hand,” Grantaire said, not even able to snicker at his own joke because he already knew who’d be stuck separating Mr. Hands from Mr. Dick, and it wouldn’t be Bossuet.

“I think he’s already started to use open palm,” Bossuet said, who did still find the situation funny. “We need to use equal force.”

“All right buddy, take your hands off your dick or we’re doing it for you.”

The masturbator found that sentence about as incidentally suggestive as Grantaire did, and started shouting about how many dicks Grantaire must handle in one day.

“Yeah, and I stuff all of them in the back of my car afterwards,” Grantaire muttered, trying to flank the man before he turned into 180 pounds of meth-fueled flailing.

Too late. Grantaire was tipped over the discounted cabbages, his face pressed into the man’s sweaty pectorals as he finally abandoned his dick to give a cop a noogie.

Grantaire hated his job. Passionately. When Bossuet struck out with his baton, he hit Grantaire in the head.

“Aim for his tit, not my head!” Grantaire yelled, trying to wrestle his way out of the former masturbator’s grip.

“I was! His chest’s almost as hairy as your head!”

“You are the worst fucking cop in the universe, Bossuet, and _I have myself for reference_ ,” Grantaire said, while his captor chuckled.

~

It turned out that Mr. Grocery Masturbator was a former college wrestler, and he’d put Grantaire in a sleeper hold. When Grantaire came to, abandoned in the ambulance, it was to find Joly chatting up the perpetrator and sharing a smoke outside.

“Did no one care about me while I was passed out?” Grantaire asked. “Joly, what happened to your Hippocratic oath as a paramedic?”

“Spent it all on Bahorel here,” Joly said, elbowing the criminal. “Oh, and you won’t be able to press charges against him.”

“You are shitting me,” Grantaire said.

Bahorel grinned and opened his mouth, revealing a truly obscene dental surgical landscape. “Turns out I didn’t react well to the Scotch I mixed with my pain pills after the wisdom teeth removal.”

“But you were still drunk and disorderly.”

“I’m also a law student. I think I’m going to sue my oral surgeon.”


End file.
